Margaret Maclean
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‘One of the most remarkable men in the entire history of archaeology’
Two hundred years ago, on 1 August 1817, the adventurer-Egyptologist Giovanni Belzoni, described by Howard Carter, with good reason, as ‘one of the most remarkable men in the entire history of archaeology’1 was the first to set foot inside the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, which had been sealed for centuries beneath the sands of […]
The schoolboy sketches of John Leech
The artist and illustrator John Leech, who became one of the foremost contributors to Punch and created the artwork for some of Dickens’ most popular works, notably A Christmas Carol, was born in 1817 in London, the son of the assistant proprietor of the London Coffee House. He was sent to Charterhouse School from the […]
A tulip bulb, the value of which would have fed ‘a whole ship’s crew for a twelvemonth’
The tulip, with its bold, eye-catching flowers in a wide variety of gorgeous colours, is in bloom, in many of our spring gardens, making one of their most striking features. In common with many flowers, it has gone in and out of fashion over the centuries – but the tulip’s history has been more dramatic than […]
Evading a flogging by the Whipping Toms
Prior to 1846, Leicester had its own very particular way of celebrating Shrove Tuesday, which precedes the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday and was therefore the occasion for an outburst of eating, drinking and riotous entertainments. A letter written by ‘J.C.B.’ to William Hone, author of the Year Book first published in 1829, explains […]
The Lord of Misrule and his band of ‘lusty guts’
Behaving badly at the Christmas festivities and doing something you would really rather not remember is not an exclusively modern phenomenon, as a trawl through our Special Collections reveals – although in the 16th and 17th centuries the scene of your shame, rather than being the office party, might have been one of the many […]
Frank, the Double Duchesse
Amongst the contents of the Fairclough Collection of engraved portraits, relating to political and social history in 17th century Britain, we have recently discovered this delicately executed miniature of Frances Stuart (née Howard), Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, who died in 1639. The oval appears to have been cut from a larger composition (in watercolour […]
A story to … awaken thrilling horror
In the fabulously Gothic frontispiece of the first illustrated edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus, published in 1831, the monster, dramatically lit by the moon, lies in a medieval chamber, complete with grinning skeleton. The artist, Theodor von Holst, has chosen to show the moment, when Victor, overcome with horror at the […]
The Dreadful Burning of the City of London
The atmosphere of London in 1666, before, as well as after, the outbreak of the Great Fire, was febrile – anti-Catholic feeling was potent and rife, portents and prophecies of terrible events abounded, the city had been ravaged by Plague the year before and England was at war with the Dutch, with whom the French […]
The destruction of Old St Paul’s
350 years ago this month, during the early hours of Sunday 2 September 1666, the Great Fire of London, which had broken out in the Pudding Lane bakery of Thomas Farynor, began to spread with terrifying speed through the city’s crooked, narrow streets, lined with wooden buildings. One consequence of the Fire, irreparable damage to […]
Desert ‘magick’ and astral bodies – what could they have to do with Special Collections?
Our current exhibition, exploring the experiences and attitudes of the British in India from the early 17th century to the turn of the 20th, features a selection of material from the Union Club Library, purchased by the University in 1964, about which I wrote previously. But it also draws on the collection of Victor Neuburg. […]
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